Gryphon
by Jjah-Jjah
Summary: A short story about a man named Vicious. Set before Spike, and before Julia. [oneshot].


It is I, Jjah-Jjah! And I have no idea why I wrote this. I'm tired. It's 2:25 AM. I'm tired. I haven't proofread this, so it's probably not perfect. Because I'm tired and inspired, yo… And I can't work on any of my other stories because all my notes have mysteriously disappeared in the move back to school from home. They're around here somewhere… When I find them, I'll update Moping Melancholy Mad. But I haven't found them yet. I'm tired. And it kinda looks like I'm typing backwards and that's kinda probably bad, so I'm going now, bye…

Disclaimer: Too tired to own Cowboy Bebop. Now read the freaking story.

Oh yeah. And there's an OC in this, but she's not a Mary Sue. Really. Because this fic is tragedy for a reason folks: EVERYONE WILL EVENTUALLY DIE! Alright then. I wrote this because I always liked the line Vicious uses when he kills the Van. And plus there should just be more Vicious fics out there… Give it a chance, it's not too horrible. Please enjoy.

And another thing! I know there are a whole slew of different spellings of the Van, (aka: the three creepy old guys that run the Red Dragon Syndicate.), including the Than, and other stuff. I just used the one I remembered first, so no hard feelings if it's supposed to be something else. You know what I mean. And there's also implied sex, so if you can't deal, don't bother me about it, please...Onward to the story!

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Gryphon

The room was cold. But then again, the rooms in the syndicate building were always cold, as if to smother out any faint trace of warmth that might be found in the hearts of those who walked within. Men floated through the gray and scarlet halls like ghosts, each absorbed in his own little personal hell-behind-the-eyelids. All that is, save one.

He had risen steadily through the ranks, though not at any little cost. Pieces of his soul had been sawn away, and although he tried, he somehow knew that finding those pieces again were impossible. And so he sat, katana resting ever at the ready against his shoulder, and waited. He waited for his the new assignment that his promotion granted him. He tried not to breathe, he tried not to move. The more he practiced a façade of the dead walking, the more people would begin to fear him, and fear garnered respect. Practice made perfect after all.

But it was shattered; for a short time it was shattered. The door of the room opened quickly and slammed shut, a breeze rustled his hair from the sudden movement and suddenly, he was not alone. A woman was in the room with him. A woman? A girl. He wasn't sure, but she was young. She sat crouched before the door, ear pressed to the surface, the expensive white tails of a designer trench coat settling to the ground. He shifted and she turned to look at him, placing a finger to her lips and winking a dark foreign eye. He guessed she was either of Chinese or Japanese descent, by her completion, and the dark color that shone in patches through the blue and red dyed braids of her long hair. His ears perked at the sound of two pairs of running feet as they moved down the hall and away. The mystery girl sat for a moment, listening, and then stood, offering him a grateful smile.

"Thanks for not giving me away. Bye now! They mean well, but they're such a bother." She opened the door and just as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone. He looked at the spot that she had stood, and then at a fixed point in space. He awaited his orders as if nothing had happened.

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He couldn't believe it. He was an assassin. He had worked hard, and he had talent. He was good at what he did. And now he had been reduced to a mere babysitter. It was not what he had expected.

"I'm sorry." He intoned softly. "But I thought that I was receiving a promotion."

"You are." His superior spat. "You're being given the honor of guarding the daughter of the head of the Red Dragon Syndicate. The other syndicates would dearly love to get their hands on her, and a bodyguard of superior skills is required. You should be grateful that you are considered good enough for the job. Besides, you know it is a show of our leader's trust in you that he allows you near his precious little girl."

There was a great deal of chuckling among those around him, and after his dismissal, he quickly found out why. The little heir of the Teng Clan was a notorious shirker of bodyguards. Apparently she went through a new bodyguard every few weeks or so, declaring that she didn't like them or some such thing. And her father, the syndicate head, Li Teng, put up with her nonsense, catering to her every whim. 'At least,' he thought, 'I won't have to put up with her for long'. And so it was that he followed the directions he had been given to child's room and walked in, as he had been told to do.

And familiar dark eyes met cold blue.

"Why hello again!" The young woman from earlier cried. Her voice was nasal. "You must be my new watchdog! I'm Yokoshima Teng, abandon hope all ye who enter here!"

He looked at her, she looked at him. There was really nothing else to do. And then she smiled.

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"You know, I like you." Yokoshima said three weeks later. "You don't order me around; you don't do anything particularly annoying. You just kind of sit there like a dead thing… And I'm cool with that, Mamoru-san."

She always called him that, 'Mr. Guardian' in her mother's language. He had never told her his name, had never felt that there was any reason to. It was a job, nothing more… He had no idea when that had changed. When the half-spoiled woman with the half-annoying voice became someone he didn't mind the company of. Perhaps it was the way she admired his katana, the way she remarked that it took a man with balls to go with a sword up against someone who had a gun. And how it took talent to go up against a man with a gun and survive. Then there was the fact that she never did anything that particularly annoyed him. For the most part, her desires were reasonable. She shopped and ate out seldom. Occasionally she went to the theatre with her father. Mostly she either watched movies, read, or lurked through the bowels of the syndicate building spying on the doings that went on there, un-accosted. That part he most certainly did not mind. He learned more about the ins and outs of the syndicate in that time than in any other. And then there was the way she would come out of the shower, wrapped in nothing but a damp white towel, smelling of strong hair dye and cranberries.

"You can call me Vicious…" He said finally. She looked at him as if surprised for several long moments and then she smiled long and slow. She crawled over from her side of the couch to his and rubbed her cheek against his outstretched hand like a cat.

"You can call me Shima." She purred. And then there were no more words.

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Later, much later, he found himself in her bed, suitably sweat-covered and entangled as per the situation. One of her hands was firmly twined in his pale hair, and he could feel her soft breath against his chest. They lay there for what seemed for a little eternity, listening to each other breathe. Then she spoke.

"You remind me of the Gryphon." She yawned. He made a sound of question and she continued. "The Gryphon from Alice in Wonderland… He was just at the court of the Queen of Hearts; he wasn't actually a part of it. And yet he knew more than any of them. He knew that the Queen never actually had anyone beheaded. He knew that the Mockturtle didn't really have any sorrow. And he knew that Alice was a simpleton. He was apart from everything, and yet he knew everything. He followed the orders of the Queen only because it pleased him to do so at the time. Are you really quite different, lover?"

"I'm different. I don't know everything."

"Not yet. You'll never know everything. But I think you'll know enough to come out on top. I sense that thirst in you, to be the head of the dragon, so to speak…"

He opened his eyes and looked down at her. She was staring up at him with her piercing eyes. "You have nothing to fear of me. I have no desire to head the syndicate." He pulled her closer.

She chuckled. "Yet?" He blinked at her and she reached up and smoothed one of the faint lines under his eyes. "Vicious, you don't know who you are yet, do you?"

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One of the last times he ever saw her was when she was lurking again. She often slipped away so easily, so he didn't find it unusual to go searching for her. He finally crept up on her in a dark narrow hall, poking her nose around a corner from which muted light shone. When he came up behind her she grabbed his coat sleeve and pulled him over so that he could see what she saw. Her father Li Teng was consulting his astrologers, three small ugly men better known as the Van. The trio sat on their dais, looking down with corpse-like eyes and gave their fortune tellers lies until Shima huffed angrily and pulled him off down the hall and away.

"I hate the Van. I hate them! I just wish dad wasn't so superstitious. They're going to bring nothing but trouble!"

When he had looked in their eyes, Vicious found that could do nothing but agree. They walked aimlessly, steps ever quickening, before he realized that something was wrong. Shima's face was steely, her steps measured and sharp, her hands swinging at her sides like pendulums.

"What is it?" He asked, grabbing her by the arm to stop her infuriating pacing. He could feel her trembling under his hand. "Why are you shaking? Tell me."

She looked down at the ground and then she turned to him. "Vicious… Will you tell me your name? Your real name, the one you were born with? I promise I won't tell anyone, I just want to hold that to me so I won't be alone… Please? You can whisper it in my ear."

He wasn't going to do it. That name was no longer a part of him, it was a stranger's name and he wanted to forget it. But then he took in the look on her face, stopped him. It was the desperate look of Cassandra. She had overheard something, and she was scared. He bent down and brushed his lips against her ear and breathed the word as softly as the sound of scales against metal. She leaned against him and she smiled, looking teary and unlike herself.

"And I'm the only one who knows this. You and I share that at least, no matter what happens…"

He wanted to tell her that everything would be alright. He wanted to tell her that he knew what was going to happen. He wanted to tell her he would protect her. He wanted to tell her he loved her. Even though he didn't… Not really. He wanted to tell her a lot of things. But he couldn't… It just wasn't a part of who he was. So he simply settled for guiding her back to her room where he comforted her in the only way he knew how.

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And then she was gone. She had gone to the theatre with her father again. He had been detained by a superior and by the time he arrived at the show the police had arrived with their colored lights and yellow tape. Li Teng was still in his reserved box, with a gunshot wound to the base of his skull. But Shima hadn't been there. She had run. They found her body in the bowels of the backstage, sprawled across a discarded backdrop from Aida with seven bullets in her back, a few measly feet from a fire exit and freedom.

The Teng dynasty had ended. Vicious attended the memorial as hosted respectfully by the Van, who coincidentally seemed to be taking up the role that Li Teng had left behind. He listened to the droning elegy and looked at the black and white photos surrounded by black roses and then he looked at the Van and narrowed his eyes till they looked like a snake's.

"…and we will shed tears of sorrow at their passing." The Van on the far left finished. There was a measure of polite applause, and Vicious glided out of the room turning his back on all of them. He roamed the halls alone, with a measure of knowledge filling him, looking at the little slice of hell behind his eyelids.

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Years later…

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Charred feathers floated down from above and the mad tang of blood was overwhelming. In the darkness, the scathing sound of a sword bit through the air, and came to rest before hoary frightened eyes.

"And you will shed tears of scarlet…" He whispered.

Eyes widened for a moment in realization, and then were bathed in blood.

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And that's the end. And just so you know, in Chinese, Teng means "flying dragon". In Japanese, Yokoshima means "wicked". And that's the end… Wait, I already said that… Sorry! Anyway, be nice and please review. If my OC grated on any of your nerves too badly, at least you have the satisfaction of her bloody demise. Okies then. Sorry it's short. R&R!

Tata, JJ


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